I HAD HOPED that by the time you started reading this the struggle between the Government and the waste movers and haulers over the $25 tipping fee would have been resolved, if not to the satisfaction of either side, then certainly in the interest of the health of all Barbadians.
As I write, it is heart-warming to hear a toning down of the previously bellicose rhetoric of the Minister of the Environment Dr Denis Lowe and the adoption of a more understanding and conciliatory attitude in search of an amicable resolution.
“You have to be open-minded,” Lowe said, in a comment mimicking a soliloquy. “You have to be fair-minded and you have to be sensitive to the real issues, and I think they have been able to present us with some real issues, as they see it, impacting on the way forward.
“We have been able to present them with our issues in terms of how we can make adjustments in the current situation, and I think that, together, we are willing to go forward in that way.”
What a change!
But there was one aspect of the controversy that bothered me as a Barbadian who has seen far more vexing issues resolved without either side going to extremes.
I am referring to the alarming abuse of coercive state power clearly aimed at intimidating the private operators who were publicly pressing for a change to yet another ill-considered and poorly thought-out revenue generating initiative – masquerading as a tax – when it appears simply to be a cash grab from the taxpaying Peter to pay down a promise to a very lucky Paul.
How else is the public expected to interpret the actions, first of the police, in not only breaking up the planned motor vehicle convoy protest, but also by their presence in such numbers, appearing to menace the truckers?
In addition, we are told that they were also asked for such documents as licences, insurance certificates and had their road tax discs closely inspected.
As reported in the media by Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley, the truckers in the convoy were also cited for such infractions as have the disc on the left-hand side of a left-hand drive vehicle; having left-hand drive displayed on the licence plate rather than on the trailer; and having a white border around a black number plate.
In other circumstances, such an approach by the police would have been hilarious and worth an entire Laff-it-Off Productions season, and not just a mere segment!
But these are perilous times, and there is nothing funny about a comical Government putting the livelihoods and businesses of yet another section of the suffering Barbadian populace at risk, while threatening protesters with eviction notices and tax audits.
Some apologists for the Stuart Administration made a weak attempt to compare the police action with their counterparts in Trinidad and Tobago in March when they caused road blocks to pressure government into a 14 per cent salary increase.
No one in their right mind would object to the police carrying out their duties in ascertaining the status of motorists in the convoy, but such intimidatory tactics are not the Bajan way of settling disputes!
Did no one in the Police High Command or the political directorate anticipate a public backlash against such a high-handed approach to a legitimate disagreement with a proposed Government policy?
We have to recognize such tactics for what they really are: a naked, hubristic abuse of state power.
Could it really be possible that the Stuart Administration as it approaches mid-way in the second term is showing the true faces of some prideful, arrogant politicians dangerously no longer caring about public opinion, and believing that they can do as they wish?
History has a way of showing that tyrants, even wannabe tyrants, no matter how successful their repressive actions might appear to be in the short term, eventually share the same fate: a fall.
Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent. Email albertbrandford@nationnews.com.
